This invention relates generally to the fields of molecular biology and drug discovery. More particularly, the invention relates to identification and evaluation of compounds which modulate the activity of specific biomolecules, including the identification and evaluation of potential therapeutic agents. It also concerns elucidation of gene function(s).
Conventionally, the identification of compounds which usefully modulate the activity of a biomolecule has been performed by either of two methods.
First, biomolecules implicated as playing a critical role in a particular disease are often used as targets in biochemical assays to find specific inhibitors or other modulators of the specific biomolecules. This approach, however, generally requires a great deal of prior research to identify, characterize, and validate the target, information which is unavailable for the vast majority of human genes (or the genes of other commercially important eukaryotic organisms) despite the identification of large numbers of putative coding regions from genome sequencing efforts. As a result, a biochemical assay approach remains unavailable for the majority of potential targets.
Second, screening is often performed using whole cell assays, typically by screening compounds against a cell of interest and looking for compounds which produce a particular readout. This process is often conducted with little or no information on the specific target affected by a particular compound.
Due to the limitations inherent in these conventional approaches, there remains a need for improved techniques for identifying the function of potential target genes and gene products. Additionally, useful targets have been identified, there also remains a need for improved screening techniques to identify potential modulators of these target genes and gene products.